Wouldn’t it be great if all artisans and artists helped each other out in such a way?

A filmmaker, age 57, decides to make a film about another filmmaker, age 46.

Actually, that is quite an honor.

That an older filmmaker would help in the career of the younger one.

So we heartily praise Salles for his mise-en-scène as well as his morals.

But then we hit another impasse.

Because words cannot express the brilliance of Jia Zhangke’s grasp on cinematic language.

And so, why should you watch this film? I ask again.

Because it gives you an introduction (not dumbed down in any way) to the works of a contemporary film artist who is leading the cinematic medium into this new century.

Likewise, it gives you an introduction to Chinese film at the same time.

These aren’t kung fu flicks (for the most part).

These are art films.

Similar to Breathless…

Born of the French New Wave.

But also born of Raj Kapoor.

Indeed, as a young boy…Jia Zhangke remembered an early film which extolled thieves. And it was this Indian film shown in China. And the Chinese kids remembered the melismatic melodies for decades…to rip off a shred and a few threads of a melody which bound them as enfants terribles.

Jia Zhangke, a Guy from Fenyang is a bit like Cinema Paradiso.

The big director returns home.

And there’s a sadness.

Maybe you can see your childhood home.

And hit the wall one more time.

You can imagine the family bed and the father’s desk was there.

And the books on shelves along here.

So many books.

That there is a sadness of being from Fenyang.

I feel it being from San Antonio.

And Jia Zhangke, all throughout this film, ideates thoughts which have now and then wisped in and out of my dreams.

Jia is very calm. Thoughtful. Serene.

A true artist.

And as he talks about the process of creation, I find him to be an exceptionally dedicated artist.

We hear about Xiao Wu (1997).

Pickpocket. Starring Wang Hongwei.

I mean, this bloke…Wang… His clothes hang on him in almost a magical way.

He’s a good-for-nothing bum in the Chaplin mold, but still puffing away like Belmondo in Breathless.

But Jia was right.

It’s the gait.

The way Wang Hongwei walks.

Body language.

Brilliant!

And the shots we see of Platform are really moving.

It’s like being from a place like Kiruna, Sweden.

Gotta get there by train.

Up past the Arctic Circle.

And the kids…they don’t have a lot of entertainment.

Maybe even the sight of a train.

But in China…………….far more vast.

These remote places.

Like the Three Gorges area where Jia made Dong and also Still Life.

But the joke’s on me.

Because the whole world knows Jia Zhangke.

The whole world of cinema.

And me, with my insular approach, not so much.

Because Jia won the Palme d’Or in both…wait.

We have the wrong envelope.

Ok…so maybe he’s not that well know.

His films have been screened in competition at Cannes, but no hardware yet.

With the exception of his Golden Lion from Venice.

But none of that matters.

What matters is that he’s making great films.

What matters is that he has the potential to best us all.

This was a very moving film for me.

Because it speaks to the obstacles of life.

Of the unhappiness.

Of the solitude which must be for creations to ferment properly.

To mix metaphors, we need the darkness in which to screen our masterpieces of light.

We cannot screen them in a glass house…at 2:30 p.m.

Finally, this film will give you invaluable insights into the recent history and current state of China.

All the people on Weibo (like Twitter).

The market system which has been kicking ass since the 1990s.

And crucial periods such as 1976-1989.

The restructuring period right after the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).

WE NOW JOIN PAULY DEATHWISH NEWS NETWORK…IN PROGRESS: “…

Xi Jinping. His father purged in 1963. His father jailed in 1968. Xi was sent without his father to work in Shaanxi Province in 1969. [The remote province from which film director Jia Zhangke hails.]

This was a time of immense violence in China. Being purged. Being jailed. Being sent to the countryside to work and be re-educated. All of this was suffused with violence.

So when President Xi got the message from President Trump himself that the U.S. had just launched 60 Tomahawk missiles into Syria minutes earlier, President Xi was met with the shock of surrealism…a perfect steak…beautiful ladies…the glitz and glamour of Mar-a-Lago…and the throat punch of an actual tiger. No paper.

“Get North Korea in line, and fast!” Would have been the message.

So that, in these times, to truly appreciate that which is unfolding around us, we need directors like Jia Zhangke.

It says Taste of Cherry. And it is a film beyond perfection. Directed by Abbas Kiarostami.

[if you are on a laptop or desktop it may appear to have no title…not very Farsi-friendly this WordPress]

Long ago I saw this quiet juggernaut.

If you’ve never seen an art film, you’ll know the genre when you see it.

Perhaps this was my first.

At an Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas.

How did I end up there?

More importantly, how did I end up here?

This (the latter) seems to be the vexing question which actor Homayoun Ershadi is asking himself while embodying the suicidal character Mr. Badii.

Never have I seen an actor say so much with such economy of means.

Driving around. Driving around.

We are suffocated by the expressionless Mr. Badii.

It reaches a head (of sorts) in the quarry. He’s had enough.

Our protagonist cannot even secure the most essential human contact. He cannot find even a marginal friend.

We do not know his story. It would be impossible for anyone to have complete empathy.

He is right. Your pain is yours alone.

But maybe a miracle is waiting…

Enter Abdolrahman Bagheri.

I have never felt such emotion in a film.

It is real. As Mr. Bagheri (his name in the film and real life) recounts his own suicide attempt we are brought into a rarefied talent for dialogue which I have only seen in Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s novel Voyage au bout de la nuit. Hope in the midst of nihilism. The deepest, darkest desperation pierced by humor…or humanity.

It places Kiarostami (at least in this film) as a forerunner of the Romanian New Wave. The trappings are similar.

We see the most depressing back alleys of urban sprawl. Gravel paths not yet claimed entirely from the grasp of the earth.

Earth.

This film is all about earth. Dirt. The dust of impressionism. Concrete.

Rocks being broken up.

A man (Mr. Badii) whose only longing is, seemingly, to be dead.

Earthmovers, earthmovers everywhere…and not a load to spare.

I have never seen a film like this.

Yes, it fits into the art film genre, and yet…it forges ahead…a new path…take the fork to the right, please.

This film is a testament of hope for the Afghan people.

A testament of hope for the Kurds.

A testament of hope for the Azeris.

And, most of all, this eternal masterpiece is a testament to the genius of Iran.

If Jean-Luc Godard had never made another film after 1983, this one would have been his best ever. It is that good. But perhaps you doubt? Let me tell you why I believe this to be the case.

This may have been the film where Godard really nailed down his mature style. Really, there is no putting a date on such things. He has continued to progress to the current day.

But let us focus on a few salient elements.

Beethoven.

The sea.

One might expect a French (Swiss) director to pick Debussy and call the elements connected (we refer here to the orchestral piece La Mer). But Godard was always very analytical. And so Beethoven is a more natural choice.

But what Beethoven? Which Beethoven? It is the string quartets.

Must it be? It must be. It must be.

Godard began (continued?) to make films more like a composer than a movie director.

The art film genre allowed him to do this. And in many ways he formed and shaped this genre from the beginning.

To call art films a genre is generally not in keeping with standard film criticism practice.

But I don’t care.

If it helps to call it a genre here, then so be it.

But does it help?

It makes no difference (as Rick Danko sang).

But let us not neglect the ocean…the sea.

“I salute you, old ocean,” as Lautreamont said in Maldoror.

Indeed, Godard has some of that proto-Dadaist perversion in this movie. Perverse, as opposed to perverted. Both.

What is remarkable beyond Beethoven and the sea is Godard as an actor.

That’s right, Godard himself plays a prominent role as (what else?) himself.

It is really a caricature of himself. Or is it?

To wit, Godard plays a director who has gone crazy.

Early on we see him in an insane asylum.

There is something slightly frightening and menacing about him from time to time, but generally he is hilarious.

Humor.

This film is replete with humor.

But it is not a comedy.

Sometimes a comedy of errors.

And so, Carmen? Yes, like Bizet. We remember Brahms being so taken with this opera.

Was it the music or was there perhaps an attractive alto in the production?

Alto. Viola in French is alto.

And who is our alto? Only one of the greatest actresses to ever live: Myriem Roussel.

I must at this point beg forgiveness from the universe for not even mentioning her in my review of Passion.

I blame Wikipedia (as I always do).

I admit laziness (as per usual).

Frankly, I knew it was her in Passion by the poolside. It is a small-but-striking role. Mainly because she is nude.

It is all very artistic, yet I see why Godard would cast the beautiful Roussel in revealing roles over the course of several films.

Yet here, Myriem is merely a violist. The viola in my life. Morton Feldman.

But it is neither Godard nor Roussel who carry the bulk of the dramatic action here.

For that we must credit Maruschka Detmers and Jacques Bonnaffé. The acting from these two players is outstanding!

Detmers plays the titular Carmen. Indeed (keeping with the hanging sonority), it is Detmers who spends a fair portion of this movie nude. But, to Godard’s credit, so does Bonnaffé.

But this is not just a gratuitous European pseudo-art film. This is the real thing.

The most beautiful moment occurs during a bank robbery.

A struggle for a gun. A man and a woman. Carmen. She has robbed the bank with a band of professional thieves.

And Joseph (Bonnaffé)…the gendarme responding to the violent robbery.

He leaves his post in front of the bank and exchanges gunfire with the trigger-happy gang.

And so it is that Carmen and Jo (Joseph) struggle for an automatic weapon. Both having been shot.

They crawl over each other. Win at all costs. To lose is death. High stakes now.

And climbing over each other in spurts of faint energy, they abruptly stop and begin passionately kissing.

They give up.

It is the moral.

Ah, but they DON’T give up! They join forces.

And so Joseph goes from cop to thief. All for love.

Lust. Love.

Oh no, I’ve said too much (as Michael Stipe once intoned).

But no…

Carmen needs to pee. Joseph has tied her wrist to his using his necktie. [What kind of gendarme doesn’t have handcuffs?]

And so they stop at a shitty roadside gas station.

The moral of the stop: even France and Switzerland have shitty roadside gas stations.

Away from the tourists. Off the beaten path. Where people actually work for a living.

And we have the most poignant scene. The most bizarre. A fat man has pocketed a jar of baby food (?) and proceeded to the restroom to eat it lustily with his fingers. Put another way, here’s a poor schmuck whose life at this moment (for one reason or another) has been reduced to shoplifting to sustain his life force.

And the poor schmuck gets a treat. Carmen needs to pee. So does Joseph. Joseph won’t untie her. And so she uses a urinal. And the shoplifter continues to make slobbery sounds as he licks his fingers while eating baby food in front of the bathroom mirror…nonplussed by the action. But he sneaks a peak…ah, whatever. He is entirely involved in his “meal.” Somehow this scene makes sense of the whole universe. It is hilarious, disgusting, and believable. The mark of genius is on this film throughout.

I must add one last thing. Just when the strains of Beethoven have become commonplace–just when the crossfaded splosh of waves has been drowned out by our psyches…it is at this point which Godard throws us the most gut-wrenching curveball: “Ruby’s Arms” by Tom Waits. Bonnaffé hugs the TV…resting his weight on the crappy 80s hotel console…and the screen is tuned to snow…static…fuzz…phasing lines of nothingness. Between channels. And as the song plays, Bonnaffé caresses the screen…caresses what might have been.

It is a most touching evocation of lovesickness.

Carmen is fond of repeating the line from the American movie, “If I love you, then that’s the end of you.” She may not work at a cigarette factory nor dance the habanera, but she is still the prototypical femme fatale. Yes, Jo…love is a rebellious bird.

If you search Google for “comment ca va godard,” you might get 83,000 results in 0.42 seconds. Google tacks on the time to remind us of its power.

Well, I must admit I was a bit powerless in slogging through this film. Keep in mind, the first time I saw Pierrot le fou I thought it was overrated. Also keep in mind, by that point Godard was already my favorite director (by a long shot).

I came to regard Pierrot le fou as one of Godard’s best films, but it had to grow on me.

Perhaps Comment ça va will also grow on me.

What must be remembered is that Godard loves games. For me, the end of this film is easily the most brilliant part.

Godard (or his collaborator Anne-Marie Miéville) plays with the editing program like it is Pac-Man. There is something very ATARI about the whole affair–that green console font and the playful symbolism of a wandering cursor.

But admissions on my part should be more specific here: I was really tired.

So perhaps I did not give this film a fair shake.

It should be no surprise to viewers of Godard’s mid-seventies oeuvre that this film makes little to no effort to entertain. It is, as are many of his films of this era, an investigation. In this case, the investigation is filmmaking itself. It is, in that sense, a bit like his earlier masterpiece Le Gai savoir. The role of Anne-Marie Miéville should not be underestimated here. It is as if Godard and Miéville were recalibrating their artistic sensitivities with this film. While many (most?) filmmakers would leave such a “product” on the shelf and chalk it up to practice or research, Godard had been in the habit of releasing these “attempts at film” for some time. As I have mentioned in previous articles, there is a particular connection between the French word essai (a test, an attempt) and the English usage of essay (particularly, for our purposes, the genre known as film essay).

And so this is very much a film essay which we are dealing with. As such, I feel like a teacher compelled to “grade” said essay. This is the traditional job of critics: to assess value. It is, perhaps, a far more subjective form of the S & P, Moody’s, Fitch gambit.

So yes, I dozed off briefly at a few points. I feel bad about this. One school of thought says that it was Godard’s job to entertain me, but I do not entirely subscribe to that way of thinking.

But let us consult Italian Wikipedia (the English site is slacking) to jog our memory…

It does indeed feel to be shot in Grenoble (certainly not Paris)… I could verify this, but I am very lazy on such points.

The contributors to Italian Wikipedia make a very good point in comparing the film under consideration to Godard’s earlier Letter to Jane. Indeed, the director once again fixates on a particular photo and what it means. We, as the audience, spend a great deal of time staring along with the creators at a picture from a protest in Portugal. 1976.

What is new here is that Godard employs his editing equipment in a novel way. A photo from a French protest three years previous (1973) is superimposed upon the Portuguese picture. It is a similar methodology as found in Letter to Jane when Jane Fonda’s facial expression was compared to other Hollywood actors (including her father Henry).

The story (if it can be called that) involves esoteric distinctions between “the left” and communism. Exactly.

What is not at all clear is that Odette (played by the very, very beautiful Anne-Marie Miéville) is the lady helping with the editing of a film. We see Odette’s face in her interaction with her young worker boyfriend, but we only see her hands (unless I dozed off one too many times) on the typewriter in her directorial capacity. What is significant is that her collaborator is her boyfriend’s father. We see his face. Boy do we see it. Over and over and over again. It should be noted that the typewriter is a motif in Godard’s work stretching all the way back to the machine-gun edit in Vivre sa vie and culminating is Godard’s magnum opus Histoire(s) du cinema.

In our film, the typewriter and the eyes of the dictator (as in dictation…taking dictation) frame a philosophical investigation of language. We might call it “lost in transmission.”

What is at stake are the alienated products of journalists. The father (head of a newspaper) deprives his staff of true journalistic activity when they become merely glorified secretaries. There is no time to think. Deadlines deadlines. And, as such, dead text. An anonymous caption for a photo (no byline) is the sole work of the editor. A journalist merely types. No time for discussion.

And thus the extension: why should a picture need a caption at all? Shouldn’t a picture tell a story and thereby eliminate the need for text? Is a complex picture which requires explanation inferior? And why not let the picture speak for itself in such a case? Why always explain what the reader is to feel???

A dictatorship falls. Strikes ensue. We hear a radio tell us Franco is dead. A subtle touch. From Portugal to Spain.

Carnation Revolution. Yes, I thought of Angola, but not Mozambique. And it makes sense. Mozambique. The only Marxist Western (as in horses and cowboys)…Vent d’est (1969).

Saint-Brieuc. It was a factory strike in ’72. We are one year off. 1975. Deadline deadline. Go to press.

Now television has completely won. Your show. Shows. On demand. One senses that the battle of art films vs. mass communication was [for Godard] not about format (film vs. video), but rather a question of diffusion and delivery.

The speed of news. The news cycle. “Information cascade” and Operation Mockingbird.